Taking a bow at 10

Encores for Diane Bell once meant hand-clapping, followed by horn-honking.

A performing arts connoisseur living in Athens, she counted on stop-and-go traffic and hour-plus drives if she wanted to enjoy a touch of New York's Broadway or Lincoln Center in the South.

"You went to Atlanta. You went to the Fox," Bell said. "If you wanted to see a concert of music, you had to go to Chastain Park. You had nothing really here that was of quality."

That changed practically overnight about 10 years ago.

Bell traded her driver's seat for one near the stages of two performance halls, giving her a view of musical and theatrical shows minutes from her home. The availability still amazes her.

"I still sit there during a performance and look around and think, 'We have this in Athens?'" Bell said. "This is so wonderful."

Not everyone felt that way when the construction of two venues - at a cost of about $62 million (for the entire school and convention complexes) - neared completion in the spring of 1996.

The Classic Center Theatre and the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center promised Athenians and the UGA populous a cultural rebirth and commercial boon. But critics at the time envisioned a bust.

Who would fill the nearly 3,500 new seats?

"It was constantly in the newspaper," recalls Classic Center season-ticket holder Carlas Allgood. "They were arguing about how big they wanted it to be, what quality it should be. The bigger and better they made it, the more expensive the shows."

Venue directors addressed the skepticism together - and publicly. They vowed to avoid scheduling overlap while promoting their own programming genres.

They still do, and they credit that effort for a decade of success at both theaters.

"This is an example of town and gown working together," said Tim Bartholow, who is the director of the Performing Arts Center. "We haven't (competed) in either style or comfort the last 10 years."

Opening nights set the course for both venues.

Soprano Jessye Norman, an Augusta native, enriched the PAC's main Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall with her operatic voice on April 13, 1996. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra soon followed, proving the acoustic wonders of the compact, 1,100-seat hall. It quickly grew roots as the area's main host site for orchestral music.

The Classic Center Theatre, meanwhile, played its part as the big show venue, opening to a sold-out performance of "Cats" on May 16, 1996. Audiences embraced the Classic Center's "Broadway Series" on a new stage purposefully built to handle large-scale productions.

The Broadway Series - made up of four to six shows a season - is the main one produced in house.

It's a wager worth staking.

"That is a risk that has paid off for us," said Paul Cramer, executive director at the Classic Center.

Athens' profile fits audiences

In hindsight, putting two performance halls in a town known for its lively amateur music and theater scene might not have been risky at all.

A 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the latest available from the National Endowment for the Arts, gave average attendance of the seven main categories of live arts - musicals, plays, classical music, jazz, dance, ballet and opera.

"The percentage of adults reporting that they attended at least one of the benchmark activities (in a 12-month period) has been very stable over the past 20 years," the survey summarized, citing similar polls from 1992 and 1982. "A stable rate of attendance combined with a growing adult population means that the number of people attending benchmark arts has been increasing."

It went on to profile those watching such events.

The survey - which included art museum visits as a benchmark - showed that nationally more whites (80.5 percent), a population growing older (35.1 percent ages 45-64) and more educated men and women (76 percent with some college or higher) attended a show at least once in a 12-month period.

Athens is estimated to be 65 percent white and was recently named as a top city in which to retire, with one of the fastest-growing segments of the population in or near retirement.

As home to the state's major university, the city also is swelling with degree holders.

Of the estimated 104,000 people living in Clarke County, close to 40 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher, according to 2000 Census figures. The statewide average is 24.3 percent.

Administrators with both venues credit UGA's social impact in the community as factoring heavily into box office success.

"Having the University of Georgia here brings a more sophisticated clientele that really appreciates the culture and the arts and is willing to support that," said Cramer of the Classic Center. "I think it would've been very difficult to support what we have without the university being here."

Education level, above all, is the key barometer in gauging arts attendance, according to the national survey summary. Signaling as much in Athens is the area's interest in the least attended of the "benchmark" activities nationwide - opera and traditional ballet. Both genres have avid followings here, with three such events planned for this season. (The two venues even joint-produced an opera series, which averaged nearly 2,000 people a show, Cramer said.)

These core fans - such as Bell, a season ticket-holder at both places - are counted on to attend the numerous events.

"There are a lot of the same people going to both," Cramer said. "I know that because when we do book something on the same night, we'll get letters."

Said Bartholow: "American Musical Theater, people will flock to."

Staying true to the music and theater

Cooperation and UGA's social impact may be important to the success of both venues, but the true cornerstones are the separate missions built into the Performing Arts Center and Classic Center Theatre by founding organizations.

Educational value, for instance, is a strong consideration for Bartholow when he schedules musical groups to appear at the Performing Arts Center's two concert halls - Hodgson and Ramsey Concert Hall, located adjacent to the Hugh Hodgson School of Music on UGA's East campus.

That is because more than 50 percent of the Performing Arts Center's $1 million budget comes from UGA, which expects programming to meet the needs of a student body thirsty for high-caliber and diverse entertainment.

"It's not all artistic," said Bartholow, whose staff also manages the facility for use by student groups and professors. "I have a certain obligation to bring people variety."

As a result, the season mirrors the academic calendar and features 30 concerts fit into a lineup of seven different series. Shows range from international dance folklorists and large orchestras to foreign ballet companies and include a free chamber music series.

Students make up nearly 13 percent of annual audiences, Bartholow said, paying half-price for most tickets that range from $16 to $75.

With the remainder of the 16,000-17,000 people annually attending those events coming from off campus, appealing to the public is also a major consideration.

Classical music, which has a proven fan base in Athens, appeals to both student and popular interest groups. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performs regularly each season at Hodgson Hall, citing it as the best concert hall in Georgia, and the critically-acclaimed Cleveland Orchestra will perform there in January.

Subscriptions broke another record this year, in large part because of the orchestral offerings, Bartholow said.

"We shaped it up front. It's going to be music," Bartholow said. "Classical music (performances) are the most subscribed events."

Conversely, the Classic Center Theatre is just one part of a roughly 60,000-square-foot, municipally owned complex. Governed by an appointed authority, the center's maze of meeting and ballrooms downtown are meant to handle large numbers of people - including big spenders. It is also a community resource as home to the Athens Symphony.

"The (theater's) value is not whether it made or lost money," Cramer said, citing a recent study crediting Classic Center visitors with funneling millions into area shops, hotels and restaurants. "(The value) is the economic impact returned back into the community every year."

In return, the theater this year received more than $1.7 million SPLOST dollars for capital improvements - an anniversary-season highlight.

Two permanent bars and concession areas were added to the concourse area. Workers painted, installed new carpet, added a new fire sprinkler system and improved the heating system in the theater.

The goal is to make the facility more comfortable for fans and more attractive to corporate groups and producers shopping for a venue in Athens.

Programming for both will stay on the track setup 10 years ago.

"We've both settled comfortably into the niches we offer," said Leigh Smith, the theater director at the Classic Center. "They do fantastic music and dance. Typically, the product we do is Broadway, Broadway, Broadway.

"We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the secret is to that success. The secret is listening to people."

Top, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo performed on Feb. 14, 2004, becoming the first troupe to sell out in the Performing Arts Center's Dance Festival series.

The Classic Center Theatre

The Classic Center is host to several touring shows and concerts and produces its own series of Broadway shows. Some of this season's highlights include "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Momix." Visit www.classiccenter.com for more information about scheduled shows or call (706) 357-4444 to reach the theater's box office.

Performing Arts Center

Concerts and dances at the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center fit into seven different series, ranging from classical music to dance. Tickets for most performances range from $16 to $75, with the chamber music series being free. UGA students pay half price.

Visit www.uga.edu/pac for more information about scheduled events.

To buy tickets, call (706) 542-4400 or go to the box office, which is generally open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.